Statement

Statement

My ceramic sculptures serve as conceptual explorations of human emotions. Themes that work on both the material and ideological scale appeal to me; themes like tension, fragility, and imbalance are especially attractive. I’m concerned with how internal factors, like psychological and physical sickness, influence the body’s external appearance. I have a fascination with biological development and strive to incorporate a feeling of skeletal structure in all my pieces. The figurative additions are abstractions that manifest themselves in small sections of my work, but do not form a whole, traditional figure. I emphasize certain areas with false bones, tendons, and veins to give my sculptures the appearance of gauntness and stress. I find great beauty in underlying structures pushing through to the surface of the skin. In all my work, the clay is finessed and often driven to extreme levels of attenuation.

Many of my sculptures represent two forms pulling away from, or compressing against, each other. They act as metaphors for human relationships that are based on impending separation or forced attachment. Many people find the development of relationships to be a source of anxiety, and I attempt to express this interactive struggle through the physical movement of the clay.